Lewis Hamilton said he was at fault for the error that cost him the lead in Sunday’s German Grand Prix and led him to finish ninth. He still leads the world championship but made an uncharacteristic mistake here in the wet, where Max Verstappen won for Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel, starting from the back of the grid, surged through to take second for Ferrari.
Hamilton went off after Mercedes had put him on slick tyres just as the rain returned. He thought the tyre choice had been wrong but held his hands up to the error, although it was then compounded by the team’s strategy.
“I am only human, it was a mistake, mistakes happen,” he said. “Today was a combination of things. It is disappointing and upsetting for all of us, to be leading a grand prix and have it under control. Things are going to be thrown at you in conditions like this but it was like one domino after another, like snakes and ladders almost. I kept hitting the snakes. It just shows you how easy it is to get a weekend wrong.”
His teammate, Valtteri Bottas, crashed out on lap 58. It was the first time for more than a year, since the Austrian Grand Prix in 2018, that Mercedes have failed to score a point. Toto Wolff described the result as “an Armageddon weekend for us”.
The Mercedes team chief could afford to be stoical given how strong they have proved until now. They have won nine of the 11 races this season. “It is not embarrassing,” he said. “It is motor racing and sometimes you’ve got to take a slap on the chin and learn. These are the days which make us better.”
Wolff also confirmed Hamilton had been suffering from a bug. “He wasn’t healthy the whole weekend,” he said. “But he did the most he could to get himself in an OK place for the race. Many of us wouldn’t have considered being in a race car. You can’t be physically in your best game when you’ve been ill for a few days.”
Hamilton did not use illness as an excuse, saying the test of racing in the wet had been mental rather than physical and insisting he would bounce back at the next grand prix in Hungary this weekend.
“We pull together and regroup,” the world champion said. “Then we will come back fighting. We are still doing pretty awesome.”